A reader offers his own review of Bungie’s controversial online shooter and explains how the fan community turned it into a great game.

As a huge Bungie fan and having put over 200 hours into the Borderland series I was suitably excited for the release of Destiny. I had been following the promotion and reading interviews, I’d even managed to get into the Alpha and Beta (which I loved) and the only fly in the ointment was I was holidaying in New York for its release.

Reading GC’s initial impressions boosted my excitement levels and my body was ready for a Destiny binge when I returned home. As we began our long trip back to the UK respected sources were posting there reviews and my heart sank with GameCentral’s ‘7’. I convinced myself it would all be OK, that I’d loved the Beta so the full game would be great, and as I settled with two friends to play through the story together I was enraptured with headshots, levelling, and hunting for loot.

I was disappointed at there being only four ‘levels’ but convinced myself they must be labyrinthine or possibly incorporate procedural level generation in dungeons (they’re not and they don’t) I told myself that Bungie would remix levels with different enemies or obstacles (they didn’t) and that the levels had areas that would surely be used for free updates in the future (You have to pay for content that at the very least was planned for before release). Couple all this with the slow grind once you hit level 20 and it was enough to put anyone off the game.

But I keep playing, and I’m not alone as Destiny remains the most popular game on my friends list across PlayStation 4 and Xbone.

I don’t believe this is a case of reviewers being ‘wrong’ regarding Destiny’s score, it genuinely is a 7/10 video game in the traditional sense. But there are so many things that Destiny does that is not traditional. Limiting your activities to weekly or daily events brings the community together each Tuesday, and the slow grind makes your stat increase and slow improvements in high level activities genuinely engaging.

The complete random nature of the drops means you always have a chance (no matter how small) of the next enemy dropping something amazing, and all of these activities really link back to the Raid. I remember the first time we played through the original raid Vault of Glass. I was the first of the group to find an exotic weapon (Pocket Infinity to any fans) and with it I could solo the hardest mobs in the game. The sense of accomplishment, and teamwork, as you understand, learn and then conquer each section of the Raid is unlike anything else I’ve played on console.

You can call it a skinner box game, or a lesson in video game addiction design but you can’t take away the feeling of teamwork and community the first time my friends and I beat Atheon and Crota.

And really, community is what holds Destiny together. It’s a shell of a world that is brought to life only through your interactions with other players; waving hello, pointing where to go, sitting down to wait and dancing for everything else. It’s a credit to that community that this ‘shell’ is where I choose to spend my time.

Oh, and I know this shouldn’t be a thing but it was an online-only game that worked as advertised at launch, credit where credit’s due.

By reader DarKerR (gamertag)/DarKerR-UK (PSN ID)

The reader’s feature does not necessary represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.